Relaxin' At The Green Mill*...

I have to give the Biermeister credit for this. It was Fred, from New Holland Ale, who, when asked, "Where should we go after the Town Hall closes at 2am?", answered, "The Green Mill, of course." He was right that night. And he's been right every Saturday night since then. It IS our favorite After Hours Saturday Night hang-out...



Here's what the wikipedia has to say about The Green Mill.

The Green Mill, located at 4802 N. Broadway in Chicago, is one of gangster Al Capone's former speakeasies from the Prohibition-era roaring '20s. The bar was also a favorite of Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson.

The bar was opened in 1907 as Pop Morse's Roadhouse. At that time, the bar served as a stopping place for mourners before proceeding to St. Boniface Cemetery. A scant three years later, new owners converted the roadhouse into the Green Mill Gardens. Lantern-lit outdoor dancing ran into the wee hours, carried by headliners like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Sophie Tucker. Actors Wallace Beery and Bronco Billy Anderson "also visited the Gardens, hitching their horses to the outdoor post and settling down for a drink after a days work filming westerns at nearby Spoor and Anderson Studios (known as Essanay Studios)," says the Mill's Web site.

As the twenties roared, The Green Mill became mobster territory when Al Capone's henchman, "Machinegun" Jack McGurn, gained a 25% ownership of the club. Manager Danny Cohen had given McGurn the 25% stake to "persuade" comedian/singer Joe E. Lewis from moving his act south to the New Rendezvous Café at Clark and Diversey. McGurn managed to convince Lewis by slitting his throat and cutting off his tongue. Miraculously, Lewis recovered, but his songs never regained their lush sound. The incident was later immortalized in the movie The Joker is Wild, with Frank Sinatra as Joe E. Lewis and a Hollywood soundstage as The Green Mill. Of course, his interest piqued, Sinatra had to visit the club.

Throughout the 1930s, '40s, and 50s, The Green Mill continued to pack 'em in with a heady mix of swing, dance and jazz music. Uptown crowds from the Aragon Ballroom or Uptown and Riviera Theaters would "stop in for one" before or after shows. Business began to slip in the mid-seventies, and in 1986, present owner Dave Jemilo bought The Green Mill and restored it to its prohibition-era, speakeasy decor.

That's the joint that we frequent now...



Once inside, the first thing that you notice is that it's dark. The walls are bathed in a red glow and the deco ceiling features barely give off any light at all...



The Saturday Late-Night Live Jazz Combo is called The Sabertooth Jazz Quintet. The lead horn player's name is Pat. And he's a madman on the saxophone. After his set is done, he'll walk right off the stage, come up to our table and say "hey". He's the coolest, easiest cat you'll ever meet. He has to be. He's a jazzman.



Hendo is convinced that Pat looks like Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser, MD) and likes to yell "NPH" at the end of the sets. Pat smiles and laughs it off. I get the impression that he's heard that joke before.

Take a second and look at the decor. Dimply lit statues stand in the corners, leering down at you, defying you to talk during the sets. (I've been to some shows where the audiences aren't allowed to talk during the sets and have to have all cigarettes extinguished an hour before the show begins, to protect the singers voices. They take their jazz seriously at The Mill.)







And if you look very carefully, you might spot a friend or two, hanging out in one of the side booths.



As hot as the music is, and it IS hot...



And as tasty as the hooch is, and it IS tasty...



The absolute best thing about spending the wee hours of the morning at the Green Mill are the good friends that I share it with...







I tell you, there's no place like it. When you're there, in the last few hours of the night and you're tossing back smoothly poured, chilled vodka drinks and the musicians have passed the focus off to the drummer and he's working his way through some unknown, alien exploration of the OTHER rhythms that he hears in the piece, and the waitress is annoyed with you for not paying quick enough, and a couple in the corner are quietly making out and the old man with the Crohn's is camped out in the bathroom, tapping his foot along with the song and the lights are low... you never feel more of a Chicagoan, than you are, at that very moment.

Right then.
Right there.
You've got it, man.
You're holding it in the palm of your hand.
You are a Chicagoan.

That's what I tried to capture with my pictures, the last time I was there. What it feels like to be in the right place, with the right people, at the right time, to be who you essentially are...

That's what Saturday Nights at The Green Mill mean to me.

Cheers,
Mr.B



For a nice peek down into the tunnels that run underneath the Green Mill, check out this little short film from the Tribune. (MEGA PROPS TO HENDO FOR FINDING THAT CLIP AND PASSING IT ALONG TO ME.)

*Bonus points to the jazzfans who correctly identified the title of this post as a reference to the Coltrane song, "Relaxin' at Camarillo."